Patricia was not the kind of mother-in-law who made things difficult through grand gestures or dramatic confrontations.
She was far more precise than that.
When she visited our home, she would walk through the rooms and drag a finger along the bookshelves and doorframes, checking for dust.
If she found any, she never said so directly.
She would simply smile.
That smile was somehow worse than any complaint could have been.
But her true hobby, the one she returned to again and again across every family gathering, every holiday dinner, every birthday celebration, was planting doubt about my son.
Sam was five years old. Bright and curious and full of questions about everything.
He had my dark curls, my olive skin, and my wide brown eyes.
Dave, his father, looked like he had stepped out of a Scandinavian travel catalogue. Blond hair, pale complexion, blue eyes.
Genetics do not always follow predictable patterns. Anyone who has spent five minutes reading about heredity understands that.
Patricia understood it too. She simply chose to act as though she did not.
The Comments That Never Stopped
